Computer users are placing a growing demand on their computers' storage capabilities. As operating systems and programs increase in complexity, power and size, as users store greater amounts of information, and as that information becomes more complex, space on the computer's hard disk drive is quickly used up. In order to gain more storage capacity, many users wish to add a second storage apparatus, such as a hard disk drive, a CD drive or a DVD drive, to their system.
Device Bay, which is receiving broad industry acceptance, defines an industry specification for interchangeable peripheral devices, such as hard disk drives, modems, network adapters, CD drives, DVD drives and a variety of other electronics devices. Any peripheral can be plugged into the Device Bay without users having to open the PC box or switch it off. It allows devices to be daisy-chained and software takes care of which interface is used by the device. With Device Bay, a user is able to install a peripheral like a DVD drive directly in a PC without opening, rebooting or turning off the PC.
Since a conventional notebook computer as shown in FIG. 1 has a minimized main body, there is no room for a CD drive after installing the hard disc and floppy disc drive. Thus, only the floppy disc drive 10 (typically of 3.5 inch size) in the left bay and the hard disc 20 in the right bay are installed within a computer main body 100 as the auxiliary memory devices. If a user wishes to install a CD drive in this notebook computer, either the floppy disc drive 10 or the hard disc 20 must be replaced.
However, the foregoing configuration often incurs a problem. If the floppy disc controller in the computer system has indicated the floppy disc drive, such as disk A, inserted in the left bay as the first channel, such assignment requires that the floppy disc drive plug into the left bay. In other words, if a hard disc is plugged into the left bay and a floppy disc drive is plugged into the right bay, the floppy disc controller in the computer system will be confused when accessing data. Therefore, a non-floppy drive device can only be installed in the right bay of this notebook computer. Therefore, such a requirement limits the easy upgrade of hardware configurations and customization of PCs and peripherals.